My Twilight Confession

I have a confession to make.

I am deeply grateful to Twilight.

This might be a startling revelation to those of you who know me, but it's the truth. I don't think that I would be where I am with my own work if it were not for that series...though perhaps not in the way that you might assume.

When I started working on my fantasy novel Twilight was still everywhere. I had seen the posters, heard the fangirl squeeing (not putting the squees down because God knows that within my fandoms I have been known to), and heard a lot of griping about how “real vampires don't sparkle”. I won't pretend I didn't do my share of scoffing at sparkly vampires. I have been a fan of the horror genre since I was a little girl so the idea of vampires being portrayed in such a way was automatically sort of...upsetting to me. However, a friend rightly pointed out that I shouldn't knock something until I'd tried it so, with trepidation, I began to delve into Twilight.

I'll get this out of the way right here before anyone asks. After reading the books, watching/reading a lot of interviews with Stephenie Meyer, and seeing the movies I can say for sure that I don't like Twilight. I have a lot of issues with the series and with many of the things its creator has said, but I don't think badly of anyone who does like it. You should never have to make excuses for the things that you enjoy.

All that being said, you are probably wondering why I do feel this sense of gratitude towards Twilight. Well, it's because my reading of Twilight and its criticism sparked my realization that my book was a rampaging band of cliches led by the Dread Pirate Sue. Specifically, reading Twilight led me to reading sporkings of Twilight. If you aren't familiar with the term and haven't read my blog before, a sporking is, well, think Rifftrax or MST3K. It's criticism, often framed humorously, that follows a given story. I've read them for a lot of fanfiction, as well for books like Eragon, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, but Twilight was my first.

I think that reading criticism, and not just of your own work, but in general, is really important. I've talked about my tendency to go and read 1-star reviews of things on Amazon, and reading sporkings like the ones I've read of Twilight is tied to that. I find sporkings to be doubly helpful, actually, because you get a better sense of what the reader is thinking as he or she reads. It can be easy to lose sight of that as a writer. You get so caught up in the story that you are telling that you can forget someone is going to be reading it. Sporkings never let you forget the presence of the Reader. You hear their comments, you see what they like and dislike in “real time”, you see when the writer does something that makes them roll their eyes. It's like having Kevin, Mike, and Bill, or the Nostalgia Critic perched on your shoulder while you read.

There are a number of sporking websites and communities out there. I think you can type “(insert fandom name) + sporking” into Google and find one for just about every fandom. I've read a number of them for books I don't enjoy like Twilight, but also some for books I love like Harry Potter. It's good to read both, it keeps you from fandom arrogance or the automatic assumption that because you like it there's nothing critique-able about it.

Dragon Touched definitely wouldn't be what it is without the time that I have spent online reading these sporkings. I'm sure a lot of people would just tell me to go and read better books instead and sure, a writer should never stop reading. But I think it's important to take a step outside the literature itself to get perspective. Reading sporkings helped me see my work from the outside and the ones that have been the influential to my own writing are Das Mervin's on This is Where the Fish Lives.

I stumbled upon this community (that aspiring writers should definitely check out) when I was close to finishing my first draft of Dragon Touched and simultaneously reading Twilight for the first time. The creator/moderator/head sporker, Mervin, caught my attention right away with her dangerously pointed wit and attention to detail. Her work is fantastic. Her writing is always well-researched, well-written, and thought-provoking.

In fact, it is so thought-provoking that when I finished reading her sporking of Eclipse I was deeply, deeply uncomfortable with my own work. Dragon Touched was always a very different story than Twilight in terms of being “Epic Fantasy” rather than Teen Paranormal Romance, but a lot of the fundamental issues with Twilight were right there in Dragon Touched. The biggest, ugliest, of which being that my main character was an obvious self-insert Mary Sue. Reading Mervin's blog gave me a lot of insight into my own work and pushed me to think long and hard about the kind of story I wanted to tell. It also shocked me out of my relative laziness regarding the mechanics of writing and the importance of editing. It was a giant kick in the ass that couldn't have come at a better time. Amelia, ever kind, told me that I probably would have realized these flaws with my work eventually and maybe she's right. But the important thing was that I hadn't realized it, or maybe I was just scared to acknowledge it. Dragon Touched had been “in progress” for years, Wren was someone I had known since high school, and it was terrifying to contemplate starting all over again. However, reading Mervin's blog showed me how necessary it was that I do just that.

Dragon Touched still isn't perfect, but it also isn't the hot mess that it used to be. And while I hope that Amelia is right and that I would have figured out the issues eventually, I'm glad I got the wake-up call that I needed when I did. So I raise a glass to sporkers everywhere, but especially inimitable Das Mervin, without whom Dragon Touched wouldn't be what it is.

Thank you again, Mervin!

Well, Dear Reader, I should probably get going. Husband just called to remind me to eat, which I haven't yet today, and I need to get some stuff done around the house. I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season and are staying safe. Take care during your New Years celebrations and don't do anything I wouldn't do.

…;)

Happy Holidays!